Chapter 16: The Money

On the courthouse steps, a reporter I did not know held a microphone toward my face.

"Mrs. Montgomery, how does it feel to win?"

"Ask me when I've slept," I said, and went down the steps.

Brennan's lawyer had him by the elbow and was walking him fast toward the parking lot.

His mother stayed behind on the top step, alone, holding her purse in both hands.

Alastair was waiting at the bottom, a little apart from the crowd.

"You said I'd take him back when he cried," I said.

"I did."

"He cried."

"I saw."

"I looked at you."

"I saw that too." His voice was careful. "I didn't know what it meant."

Hazel had come up on my other side with the baby, and she was not even pretending not to listen.

Half the town was still on the steps behind us.

I looked at Alastair, with all of them watching, and I did not lower my voice.

"When this baby sleeps through one night," I said, "I'm taking you home and fucking you until you forget you were ever sorry."

Nobody on the steps moved.

Alastair's face did something I had not seen it do. It went completely blank, and then very slowly it went red.

"I heard that," said Hazel.

"You were meant to."

"Hm." She shifted the baby to her other arm. "Rule five stands. Tonight he gets his hour in the kitchen, and the door stays open."

At eight that night, Alastair was at my table with his tea, taking his hour, and the egg timer ticked on the rail.

Then the knock came.